#and so had the foreshadowing

[egophiliac]

he did it! 🐍 and it only took...uhhh...well, there probably could've been less punches, but why hold back!

PUNCHES FOR EVERYONE

[choices-and-voices]

OKAY SO I THOUGHT I WAS DONE BUT GUYS

GUYS

THE THEMATIC PARALLELS HAVE BEGUN

Okay, so I know I’ve already made literally forty posts about The Cursed Heart Book 1, but. There’s one more scene that I really want to talk about before I move on. To me, it’s the scene that explains what the entire book is about –

See, back when The Cursed Heart Book 1 was being released, I remember that Tumblr was overflowing with criticism of the MC. Every second post was about how ‘it’s so annoying to always be playing the fish out of water’, or ‘it’s so boring to always be playing nice’, or ‘it’s so frustrating to always be playing naïve.’ And yeah, those criticisms are valid for a lot of Choices books, but… they’re not really valid for The Cursed Heart. Because the MC being like that is the entire point of the story. The Cursed Heart is a fairytale, and a key characteristic of fairytales is that they have a moral, and the moral of The Cursed Heart is one of the most classic in the genre: that kindness and love conquer all. MC is an innocent outsider because they are meant to contrast the scheming culture of the Fae. MC is sweet and gentle because they are meant to demonstrate how goodness can be a strength. MC is ridiculously trusting because they represent a world where people don’t hurt one another. And literally the essence of the plot is that Kieran has been hurt in that way, has been ‘cursed’ by their heartbreak to become lonely and manipulative and cruel, and MC is the symbol of a better world that restores their hope and finally brings them back from the brink. Yes, it’s a sappy, tropey story, and yes, nobody is obligated to like it. But also, nobody can say that it would be a better story if MC was different, because if MC was different then it literally wouldn’t be the same story at all. For once, the MC has been written with a distinctive personality that serves a narrative purpose, rather than just being a blank slate whose sole characteristic seems to be be horniness, *glares at every other current MC except the Blades one*. And I don’t know about you, but – I find that really, really cool.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Danse Macabre

[Commission]

[24601orwhatever]

KYLE ADAMS as GRANTAIRE

mastered by @bikinibottomdayz

[sualne]

have some trans swan lake barbies

[unluckedtj]

something bad’s about to happen to me

why i feel this way, i don’t know maybe

[owlsie-hoot]

[nenoname]

i need to see people talk about the bill+stan dynamic so bad....

bill and his endless loathing for stan, the fact that stan beat him with a trick that they used as a kid and bill seeing all the traits he hates most about himself reflected in stan

stan being able to read bill like a book and encouraging ford to forget about that creep, while part of him is still stuck thinking about bill and realising the extent bill hurt his family back when he was completely oblivious to him

the contrast of bill being offered the chance at redemption for destroying his world but refusing it, while it's been stated that stan knowingly risked the destruction of the world all for the chance of being redeemed

and that poem.....

[nottoonedin]

At the end of this story, there is only a cold spot,

stained with blood and empty air.

[jicklet]

1.15 || 4.03

Was it after you drank Karen's fake poison for me? Earlier.

[nellasbookplanet]

This is such a bittersweet way for Liliana to end. For so much of the campaign, she’s spoken of herself almost as if she believes herself fully lacking in agency regarding her circumstances. As if she had no choice but to join the Vanguard, to stand by while Ludinus and Otohan committ atrocities, to leave her family behind, to put the world on the line. This was the only way she could see to 'save her daughter', so of course there was no choice but to do it. And when Imogen reached out to her, told her that no, I don’t want this, you can still walk away, there’ll be consequences but you can walk away, Liliana dithered. Suddenly there was an undeniable choice - to betray either Ludinus or her daughter - and she didn't want to make it, didn't want to committ to either choice, didn't want to accept that despite all her hardships she does, in fact, have agency.

In the end, she didn’t get to make that choice between Vanguard or Imogen. She dithered for too long, and the agency that she had so long denied having was finally, truly, taken from her.

[peregrine5]

So that last chapter huh

[wonder-worker]

Thinking about Elizabeth Woodville as a gothic heroine is making me go insane. She entered the story by overturning existing social structures, provoking both ire and fascination. She married into a dynasty doomed to eat itself alive. She was repeatedly associated with the supernatural, both in terms of love and death. Her life was shaped entirely by uncanny repetitions - two marriages, two widowhoods, two depositions, two flights to sanctuary, two ultimate reclamations, all paralleling and ricocheting off each other. Her plight after 1483 exposed the true rot at the heart of the monarchy - the trappings of royalty pulled away to reveal nothing, a never-ending cycle of betrayal and war, the price of power being the (literal) blood of children. She lived past the end of her family name, she lived past the end of her myth. She ended her life in a deeply anomalous position, half-in and half-out of royal society. She was both a haunting tragedy and the ultimate survivor who was finally free.

[catabasis]

what a FANTASTIC start for Ncuti Gatwa's run as the Doctor, The Church on Ruby Road was so much fun and so emotional and Ncuti and Millie Gibson are great together. i'm SO EXCITED for this era!!

[fanficrocks]

Prophetic words from Morse in Oracle?

Or perhaps a bit more of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Once he and Thursday have their man, there is this little scene in Thursday's office...

Thursday: You were right, then. And I was wrong. It wasn't the boyfriend.

Morse: Well, don't feel too bad about it. Sometimes you can't see what's staring you in the face. We got there in the end. That's the main thing.

And then it cuts to Morse at Ludo's garden party...

Just how Ludo manages to so thoroughly and quickly win the TRUST of the DS who could find something suspicious in a saint's sock drawer is beyond me.

But regardless of the reasons, it is like Morse himself foreshadowed the coming betrayal with his words to Thursday just minutes before "Sometimes you can't see what's staring you in the face."

[sampilled]

we, as samgirls, do not talk about this enough. i am screaming and crying and bashing my head against the wall and bashing my head against the wall and bashing my head against the wall and bashing my head against the wall and bashing my head against the wall and bashing my head against the wall and bashing my head against the wall and bashing my head against the wall and bashing my head against the wall and bashing my head against the wall

its the shot of the partially open door that gets me